"World Without Work"

Anything to do with the traditional world of get a degree, get a job as well as its alternatives
EdithKeeler
Posts: 1099
Joined: Sun Sep 01, 2013 7:55 pm

"World Without Work"

Post by EdithKeeler »

Article in The Atlantic. Worth a read.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... rk/395294/
In the past few years, even as the United States has pulled itself partway out of the jobs hole created by the Great Recession, some economists and technologists have warned that the economy is near a tipping point. When they peer deeply into labor-market data, they see troubling signs, masked for now by a cyclical recovery. And when they look up from their spreadsheets, they see automation high and low—robots in the operating room and behind the fast-food counter. They imagine self-driving cars snaking through the streets and Amazon drones dotting the sky, replacing millions of drivers, warehouse stockers, and retail workers. They observe that the capabilities of machines—already formidable—continue to expand exponentially, while our own remain the same. And they wonder: Is any job truly safe?
...

But even leaving aside questions of how to distribute that wealth, the widespread disappearance of work would usher in a social transformation unlike any we’ve seen. If John Russo is right, then saving work is more important than saving any particular job. Industriousness has served as America’s unofficial religion since its founding. The sanctity and preeminence of work lie at the heart of the country’s politics, economics, and social interactions. What might happen if work goes away?
Imagine a future where retirement isn't voluntary, but forced upon people by circumstance.

Personally, I think the majority of people will find a way to keep busy, even if it doesn't look like work as we know it now, and maybe it will usher in that golden age predicted by the old sci-fi stories, where robots do all the work and people are free to concentrate on art and beauty and philosophy.

George the original one
Posts: 5404
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by George the original one »

EdithKeeler wrote:Personally, I think the majority of people will find a way to keep busy, even if it doesn't look like work as we know it now, and maybe it will usher in that golden age predicted by the old sci-fi stories, where robots do all the work and people are free to concentrate on art and beauty and philosophy.
Oh, they'll keep busy and it won't look like work. But it will be damn annoying as they gossip and try to tell each other what's wrong with the world.

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by Dragline »

I feel like that article has been written many times before. I have difficulty believing that "This Time its Different."

The jobs will change. But new jobs will be created. Someone will have to monitor and fix the self-driving cars, for example.

But I agree with the idea of "regional depressions". I had a good friend who grew up in Warren near Youngstown, and the whole place was one inexorable decline through most of his childhood.

Yet it seems highly likely that some areas will decline while others will prosper. Most of the world has already experienced this kind of up and down history -- really only in North America and a few other places is the myth of linear "progress" still widely accepted as the natural order of things. IMO, the rise and fall of regions is more of a natural state.

Technology is largely deflationary (things get cheaper and middle men get squeezed), so tends to increase the steepness of the power laws governing wealth and income distribution (Vilfredo Pareto's famous 80/20 rule observation that is trending towards 90/10). In recent years in the US, more "retirements" have been taken in the form of disability applications, encouraged by the poorer states to up their federal take.

The biggest takeaway I get from this runs with my confirmation bias that "almost nobody lives in the aggregate". Either things are great in your local area or they are not. People who are willing to move and adapt or find ways to economize tend to produce more winners in the long run.

vexed87
Posts: 1521
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 8:02 am
Location: Yorkshire, UK

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by vexed87 »

The most direct solution to the latter problem would be for the government to pay people to do something, rather than nothing. Although this smacks of old European socialism, or Depression-era “makework,” it might do the most to preserve virtues such as responsibility, agency, and industriousness...
This really doesn't sound any different to our modern day welfare state.

I agree with Dragline, those who possess agency will not struggle. Whatever work looks like in the future, I'm sure there will be plenty of it. I know my household doesn't look after itself, and my veg garden won't be double digging itself! :evil:

It makes me chuckle when people fear these changes. I'm quite looking forward to it all.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Unlikely. Simple experiment. Form little square with your thumbs and forefingers and randomly frame within your field of vision. Maybe move around a bit and repeat a few times. See any work you could do if you were willing to claim responsibility and take initiative? If not, I would say you are either extremely lucky or incredibly lacking in imagination. I do this exercise periodically and the interesting thing I've experienced is that even if you just randomly start doing the work in front of you, you will often eventually get paid for your work. However, it is the socio-economic-ecological setting in which you perform this exercise that will often determine how much and in what form you will be paid.

jacob
Site Admin
Posts: 15907
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 8:38 pm
Location: USA, Zone 5b, Koppen Dfa, Elev. 620ft, Walkscore 77
Contact:

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by jacob »

Reminds me of this quite old site: http://whywork.org/

reepicheep
Posts: 383
Joined: Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:45 am

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by reepicheep »


User avatar
Ego
Posts: 6359
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:42 am

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by Ego »


black_son_of_gray
Posts: 504
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2015 7:39 pm

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by black_son_of_gray »

A perhaps more forceful take to the topic:
https://aeon.co/essays/what-if-jobs-are ... he-problem
Don’t take my word for it, look at the numbers. Already a fourth of the adults actually employed in the US are paid wages lower than would lift them above the official poverty line – and so a fifth of American children live in poverty. Almost half of employed adults in this country are eligible for food stamps (most of those who are eligible don’t apply). The market in labour has broken down, along with most others...

And don’t tell me that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour solves the problem. No one can doubt the moral significance of the movement. But at this rate of pay, you pass the official poverty line only after working 29 hours a week. The current federal minimum wage is $7.25. Working a 40-hour week, you would have to make $10 an hour to reach the official poverty line. What, exactly, is the point of earning a paycheck that isn’t a living wage, except to prove that you have a work ethic?
The fastest growing component of household income since 1959 has been ‘transfer payments’ from government. By the turn of the 21st century, 20 per cent of all household income came from this source – from what is otherwise known as welfare or ‘entitlements’. Without this income supplement, half of the adults with full-time jobs would live below the poverty line, and most working Americans would be eligible for food stamps.
When we place our faith in hard work, we’re wishing for the creation of character; but we’re also hoping, or expecting, that the labour market will allocate incomes fairly and rationally. And there’s the rub, they do go together. Character can be created on the job only when we can see that there’s an intelligible, justifiable relation between past effort, learned skills and present reward. When I see that your income is completely out of proportion to your production of real value, of durable goods the rest of us can use and appreciate (and by ‘durable’ I don’t mean just material things), I begin to doubt that character is a consequence of hard work.

When I see, for example, that you’re making millions by laundering drug-cartel money (HSBC), or pushing bad paper on mutual fund managers (AIG, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Citibank), or preying on low-income borrowers (Bank of America), or buying votes in Congress (all of the above) – just business as usual on Wall Street – while I’m barely making ends meet from the earnings of my full-time job, I realise that my participation in the labour market is irrational. I know that building my character through work is stupid because crime pays. I might as well become a gangster like you.

Farm_or
Posts: 412
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2016 8:57 am
Contact:

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by Farm_or »

I have to agree with dragline and add my own two cents:

This was the same story thirty years ago when I started college. I was an ignorant eighteen year old, but I knew that somebody had to support the machines in this new world. I enrolled in a technical engineering program that was challenging. The first year, 70% of my class mates changed majors to something easier.

My first job in equipment support, I worked with many equipment operators making little over minimum wage who held degrees in liberal arts, business, and theology. The same majors all of the drop outs went to. There was then and still is a shortage in engineering, but an abundance of other majors. Supply and demand?

For my high school classmates that stayed home? They were in competition for few jobs because of the locale and were lucky to work for minimum wage. Their lack of sacrifice in moving where the action was, was an expensive life sacrifice.

Now, please excuse me as I've volunteered for today's youth robotics competition...

Did
Posts: 693
Joined: Mon Apr 01, 2013 7:50 am

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by Did »

@jacob I googled the author 13 years after she said why work? she was in a bad way:

However, I am also single, I lack health insurance, and I live in the USA. In this country, people who do not have health care coverage through a spouse or employer are pretty much left to fend for themselves. I’m eligible for my state’s low-income plan, but I’ve been on the waiting list a long time, and there isn’t enough funding for everyone who needs it, so I’m out of luck for the time being. Fortunately, I haven’t had any urgent, severe health crises ever since I lost access to health insurance through a divorce.
Even if I continue to go without health insurance – which I have done for two years now; I go to community clinics for the low-income and homeless whenever I have medical needs – I can’t stay free of jobs and the need for money all by myself. None of us really can, no matter how simply we live. Even monks and nuns who live in monasteries and take vows of poverty accept alms, donations and patronage from the lay community.
Finding a way to live indefinitely without a job if you are single – especially in a country with an ailing economy, and in which you have a high chance of facing bankruptcy if you ever contract a serious illness – is not at all an easy task. At the moment, my circumstances are such that I do not have the wherewithal to pull it off. Divorce and economic recession have wreaked havoc in my life. I have no financial assets left; my assets are my education, skills, relationships, and the belongings in my home. Under these circumstances, it doesn’t matter whether or not I want a job; I must continue to look for one. And I am hardly the only highly educated person my age from a culturally middle-class background who is dealing with a situation like this. In fact, my situation is still quite fortunate compared to that of some of my friends. The middle class is collapsing.

https://radicalunjobbing.wordpress.com/ ... g-a-faker/

Did
Posts: 693
Joined: Mon Apr 01, 2013 7:50 am

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by Did »

@ jacob Here is the why work? author now!

https://vimeo.com/150515455

She says in the video (where she is asking for 'patronage') she serves her community by making sacred spaces of endarkenment.

EDIT: She did get a job, cleaning houses.

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by Dragline »

Ouch. Well, alrighty then!

There's certainly a cautionary tale there -- the marketplace probably values your skill sets, ideas and goals much differently than you do.

ducknalddon
Posts: 249
Joined: Fri May 20, 2016 5:55 am

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by ducknalddon »

"The middle class is collapsing."

That's a big leap to make from finding you have to work for a living rather than having everything handed to you on a plate.

luxagraf
Posts: 215
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2013 4:32 pm
Contact:

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by luxagraf »

Dragline wrote:There's certainly a cautionary tale there -- the marketplace probably values your skill sets, ideas and goals much differently than you do.
I think that's sort of her point though, that the entire marketplace model is the problem. That allowing the marketplace to set the value of your ideas leads to soulless drudgery (work).

Solutions become ideas gift economies, permaculture expanded to an economic metaphor and so on. A lot of this stuff was a big part of the occupy movement too. I think it's interesting, but the overwhelming lesson I've taken from watching people try these sorts of experiments is that you can't do it alone, you have to find a local community or people with relatively similar values (at least on the primary issues of economics). Or create one. Transition towns, that sort of thing seem to have some successes at this I guess. For now.

Dragline
Posts: 4436
Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:50 am

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by Dragline »

luxagraf wrote:
Dragline wrote:There's certainly a cautionary tale there -- the marketplace probably values your skill sets, ideas and goals much differently than you do.
I think that's sort of her point though, that the entire marketplace model is the problem. That allowing the marketplace to set the value of your ideas leads to soulless drudgery (work).

Solutions become ideas gift economies, permaculture expanded to an economic metaphor and so on. A lot of this stuff was a big part of the occupy movement too. I think it's interesting, but the overwhelming lesson I've taken from watching people try these sorts of experiments is that you can't do it alone, you have to find a local community or people with relatively similar values (at least on the primary issues of economics). Or create one. Transition towns, that sort of thing seem to have some successes at this I guess. For now.
Well, it's HER problem, but she is a black-and-white thinker. The solution need not be "change everything about the way the world works" (black-or-white solution), when it can be "do what you need to do to make a living" and then "do whatever you want to do" on the side. It's highly unrealistic to expect someone else to pay you for your hobbies or creative outlets, regardless of your economic system, unless they independently place a high value on what you are doing.

If you are interested in planned communities/communitarian movements, there is a long history to them and they are nothing new. The main takeaway from a study of such histories is that they tend to fail within a generation unless they are rooted in some form of religious or spiritual practices (e.g., the Amish). Why that tends to be the case is something that is debated by people who study them.

That being said, I agree that movements such as Transition Towns are valuable, albeit not necessarily as a form of communitarianism, but just making towns and neighborhoods nicer places to live in.

luxagraf
Posts: 215
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2013 4:32 pm
Contact:

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by luxagraf »

Dragline wrote:
luxagraf wrote:If you are interested in planned communities/communitarian movements, there is a long history to them and they are nothing new.
Well, I have about zero interest in participating in one. :-) But I find them interesting in that they act as a crucible for new and old ideas to play out in something like the real world. I think they're instructive to observe basically. And yeah the big takeaway that without religion, they almost always seem to fail is... interesting.

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by BRUTE »

Dragline wrote:I think that's sort of her point though, that the entire marketplace model is the problem. That allowing the marketplace to set the value of your ideas leads to soulless drudgery (work).
allowing other humans not to give her money for doing stuff they don't want is the problem?

humans.

chenda
Posts: 3289
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by chenda »

In fairness her predicament is shared by a lot of people who had 'secure jobs'

Her ideas were sound enough, I think she's just had a run of bad luck and perhaps was a bit naïve in some of her choices. At least, that's the impression I get from what she has written.

luxagraf
Posts: 215
Joined: Tue Nov 26, 2013 4:32 pm
Contact:

Re: "World Without Work"

Post by luxagraf »

BRUTE wrote: allowing other humans not to give her money for doing stuff they don't want is the problem?
humans.
Well, it's hardly the only way to organize a culture. Given the current state of culture/environment I think arguing that a market-based economy is the best thing going is a tough sell.

As for the original post though, I find the most of the arguments around these "world without work" articles amount to not very well thought out semantic juggling. The Atlantic and Aeon pieces both simply redefine work as "things I want to do which might be productive might not", but they still both essentially have the very Puritan-inspired anti-leisure outlook, and they still both look down on someone who's goal is just to lie in a hammock sipping coconuts.

Post Reply